


burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night

by Wolvesandwerewolves



Series: I’m With You in Rockland [11]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective Disorder, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25965799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesandwerewolves/pseuds/Wolvesandwerewolves
Summary: Klaus sits up late at night, staring out the window at the dark street below the hospital. It’s his last night there, and he cant sleep.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: I’m With You in Rockland [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865728
Comments: 18
Kudos: 124





	burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night

**Author's Note:**

> sup...took a late night walk to try to get into the right mindset for this piece. went barefoot like i did as a child, and i liked the rough feeling of the pavement. also listened to creepy music and Howl (bc obv im obsessed at this point) 
> 
> Trying to get back into that darker atmosphere bc it’s so fun but this one is just kinda contemplative ig? Almost sort of melancholy? idk but here it is, and it’s only 11:30

It’s three days before Halloween. 

Klaus is being released in the morning—supposed to be nine on the dot, but he knows from wistful experience it may be hours later. It should be annoying. It is, almost. He knows Ben will complain, and Vanya will worry. But he doesn’t mind, really. 

He can tell Ben is itching to get out of here. He gets it; he is, too. Anxious and antsy and dimly excited. He misses having breakfast with Vanya in the mornings, and sleeping in his own bed, moonlight blazing dim just inside the floor of his bedroom; and he misses walking home from work at night, listening to the orchestra of crickets chirping. He misses having food that actually tastes good, and walking barefoot instead of socked, and leaning on the railing of the deck with Ben, smoking in the dark.

But leaving this place feels . . . uneasy. He’s not sure he likes it here, really, but the ugly paint on the walls, and listening to everyone in Group, and lying on the uncomfortable, ugly couch listening to the buzz of tv and chatter—it’s all something he’s been well-aquatinted with, ever since he was thirteen. It’s easy, almost, even when it’s not. 

The routines are oddly comforting. He’s been practicing them everyday for over a month, but he knows he likely won’t when they go home. He’ll fall back into his old routines, instead. Pills at seven, breakfast with Vanya, Ben reads next to him as he sleeps, eyeliner and club keys, long night walks, no shoes. All so familiar and long ago. He feels like he’s grown, because it’s nostalgic and grey, but Halloween is in three days, and simultaneously he’s still a child. He’s not sure he’s ready to go back, yet.

Home is familiar and daunting. It’s achingly close, but somehow not close enough. The hospital is near sentimental, and too eternal and almost like the echo of a comfort. 

It’s three am, and Klaus can’t sleep. It’s nearly habit, now, or maybe traditional of his other last-nights from years before. 

He’s sitting in an uncomfortable chair next to the window in his room, feet swung over the side of one armrest, one arm draped along the back of it. The curtains are drawn back, and on the dark streets below, circles glow orange and blue against the cracks of the pavement. It’s dark out. The night swallows the rest of the street not illuminated, conceals it in shadows. 

He wants a cigarette. 

Ben is sitting in the chair across from him, nearly mirroring his position. He looks almost worried, but mostly passive. He’s used to this. Insomnia is a routine, too. 

“We should go to bed,” he says. 

He yawns, and Klaus thinks he’s just trying to persuade him to go. Like Pavlov, and the dog he told him about on a clear night like this, so long ago and only six months behind. It was something he’d already known, but for some reason he let Ben think it was new and interesting for him. He’d traded that fact for one about himself, and then Ben told him stories of their childhood he didn’t know anything about. 

“It’s late,” Ben says. “Vanya is picking us up tomorrow.”

Klaus hums. He lets his eyes flicker back to the window, imagines the rings of light as tiny sidewalk spaceships. Or maybe eyes, imbedded into the mouth of the pavement like an earthly monster. 

He’s tired. His thoughts stray without a leash when he’s like this, always dark and soft. He thinks, briefly, of the recurring nightmare he has had since he was eight: stone cold floors biting through thin pajamas, shadowed figures wailing, a screaming face rushing right through him worse than frozen wind.

He hasn’t told Ben, yet, that he thinks their father might have locked him in a mausoleum before he was ever lied to. He doesn’t want it to be spoken. It’s better as a nightmare than a memory and he doesn’t want to let it morph. 

“Tell me a fun fact, Ben.”

“Okay.” He shifts in his seat. Klaus catches the movement out of the corner of his eye. His clothes make no sound, brushing against the fabric of the chair. He’s a ghost. “I’m thinking.”

Klaus nods. He yawns, and plays with the plastic bracelet on his wrist. Ben is right. He should go to bed. And he’s twenty-three, now. He shouldn’t be afraid of the dark. 

But he looks back to the comforting streetlights, anyway. Maybe he’s not really afraid of the dark so much as he’s scared of where his mind goes, the nightmares _(memories)_ of the cold marble floor, the ghosts that screamed at him, and how his heart pounded. 

He’ll leave the curtains open tonight. He likes sleeping with the dim lighting of the moon and street lamps spilling onto his bedroom floor.

“Did you know on Venus, the days are longer than their years? Basically it goes around the sun faster than it spins on its axis.”

“Huh,” Klaus says. He yawns again. He wonders what living on Venus would be like. 

Probably cold. 

“Can we go to bed, now?”

Klaus lazily flips him off. He hides a yawn behind his hand, pulls the fuzzy blanket Vanya had given him tighter around his shoulders. He stretches, then shifts on the chair and lowers his feet back on the ground. 

Ben doesn’t sigh, but Klaus can tell he’s relieved. He follows him back to the bed, sits on the skinny edge, legs disappearing through Klaus’s chest. He has his hood up, and his eyes shadow over like the ghosts from his childhood. But Ben isn’t scary. 

Sometimes it still feels so weird to him. How close they became after Ben died. He’s not glad his brother is dead, but he’s glad he’s here. 

“Do you think if Dad never lied to me, we would have grown up closer?”

He’s not sure, really, why he asks. He’s feeling contemplative tonight. He doesn’t know if it’s a negative symptom, if he’s headed towards a depressive episode, but he hopes not. He leaves tomorrow. 

Maybe being home again will help.

“I don’t know,” Ben says, and sighs. 

Klaus sighs back. He thinks about how things could have been. He could have gone on missions with his siblings, somehow make his scary powers useful. He could have gone through training—maybe that’s what the mausoleum was, that night. And his character in the comic book retellings of the Umbrella Academy probably would not have schizophrenia, even though he does. Or maybe he wouldn’t even know, then.

And Vanya would have grown up alone. 

“Maybe. Go to sleep, Klaus.”

Klaus yawns again. He pulls the blanket up higher, tucks it underneath his chin. 

Whatever reason his father had for feeding him pills and lying to him—he’s thankful for it. He still hates Reginald. When the old man finally croaks, or if he ever does, Klaus will breathe a sigh of relief.   
  
But he’s glad he grew up with Vanya, at least. He liked being ordinary even when he never was. 

“Did you tell me once, Mary Shelley lost her virginity on her mother’s grave?”

“Yes,” Ben says. “But it’s just a rumor. Why are you thinking of that?”

He shrugs, blinks one eye open to squint at Ben in the dark. He doesn’t really remember closing them. He’s leaning against the headboard, reading _Frankenstein_ upside down, or at least pretending to. It’s probably too dark to make out the words he knows by heart

“I’m putting it on my bucket list.”

Ben snorts. “You’re not a virgin. But have fun. Goodnight, Klaus.”

Klaus rolls his eyes. But he yawns again, and after studying the broken rectangles of pale light on the floor one last time, he closes his eyes and tries to clear his mind of thoughts. 

He falls asleep to the sounds of Ben turning the page next to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah idk where i was going with this the whole time i wrote it. but i got the words on the page and now here we are. 
> 
> also, klaus’s mental health will always be something he has to take care of and work for. but he’s improving and he’s healing and so today I didn’t tag mental health issues. idk maybe I’ll change it in the morning, im just also lazy so
> 
> actually going to bed early tonight, im so proud of myself and it is not warranted bc i know ill give up and become friends with my insomnia again. anyways thank you guys for reading and commenting, i love all of you 
> 
> xoxo goodnight


End file.
